Death of a Stranger (13 page)

She found tears prickling her eyes for an instant. She knew he meant it, and it was more precious to her than she had expected. But she still wished to argue. That was no help to women like Alice and Fanny. “Oliver…”

Margaret leaned forward. “Sir Oliver,” she said urgently, her cheeks flushed but her eyes steady, “if you had seen that poor woman’s body with its broken arms and legs, if you could see her pain, her fear, and the shame she feels because she has taken to the streets to pay her husband’s debts, you would feel as we do, that to nurse her through the daily distress of at least partial recovery, only to set her out into Coldbath for it to happen again, because her debt is ever falling behind…”

“Miss Ballinger…”

“Then-” She stopped abruptly, the color deepening in her face as she became conscious of how forward she was being. “I am sorry,” she said contritely. “It is not your sort of case. And it is not as if we had any money to pay you.” She rose to her feet, her eyes downcast with embarrassment. “It was an act of desperation…”

“Miss Ballinger!” He rose also, stepping around the desk towards her. “Please,” he said gently. “I do not mean that I am unwilling, simply that I do not know what I can do! But I promise you that I will put my attention to it, and if there is anything that may be done within and through the law, I will tell you, and take your instructions. Money need not be a consideration. I hesitate only because I do not wish to promise what it is outside my power to give.”

Margaret looked up at him quickly, her eyes candid and direct, her face filled with gratitude. “Thank you…”

Hester realized with a shock of amazement that Rathbone was acceding to a request entirely against his interests and outside his nature in order not to refuse Margaret. It was not Hester he was pleasing, as it had always been in the past. She was glad he agreed, of course, and grateful, but it was an odd sense of rebuff that it was not for her. It was not obvious-in no way had he been less than friendly to her, but the quality of his attention was different. She knew it as certainly as a change of temperature in the air. She should have been happy for both of them. She was happy! She did not wish Rathbone to spend the rest of his life in love with her when she would only ever love Monk. But just today, this was as if a door had closed in front of her, and something in it hurt.

Rathbone had turned towards her. She must smile, it was imperative.

“Thank you,” she added to Margaret’s words. “I think we have told you everything that we know. It is the principle rather than individual women so far, but if we learn anything further we will inform you, of course.”

There was nothing else for any of them to say, and they were conscious of the courtesy of his having seen them at all at the expense of other clients waiting. They excused themselves, thanking him again, and five minutes later were in a hansom riding back toward Coldbath Square. They did not speak, each lost in her own thoughts. Margaret was still flushed, her eyes wide, turned away from Hester and staring out of the window at the passing streets. No words could have been more eloquent of the fact that very plainly she had not forgotten her first meeting with Rathbone, nor had its emotional mark on her been worn away in the time between. But it was something too delicate to share. Had their roles been reversed, Hester would not have spoken either, and she did not think of intruding now. She and Margaret had been honest and natural friends. Part of such friendship was respect, and the understanding of when not to speak.

She did not wish to share her own thoughts, except the superficial ones of the mind, the difficulty of knowing where to find the women who owed money to the usurer, of persuading them that help was possible… if indeed it was, and the effort needed to convince them that the exercise of courage would win them anything but further pain. Above all there was the necessity of being absolutely certain that that was true.

But Margaret had been in Coldbath Square long enough to know that for herself, so Hester also watched the streets pass by and thought of practical things.

In the afternoon another woman was brought in beaten for debt. She was not seriously injured, but she was very frightened, and it was that which marked her apart from the usual anger and misery of those hurt. She was almost silent as Hester and Margaret tended to her shallow, painful knife cuts. She would not say who had inflicted them on her, no lies and no truth, but they were very obviously intentionally made. No imaginable accident could have caused such vicious and repeated slicing of the flesh.

She stayed a few hours, until they were certain the bleeding was stopped and the woman had at least partially recovered from shock. Margaret wished her to stay longer, but shaking her head, she picked up her torn shawl, once a pretty thing with flowers and fringes, and went out into the square toward the Farringdon Road.

Margaret stood in the middle of the room and looked around at the tidy cupboards, the scrubbed tabletops and the floor.

Hester shrugged. “I suppose we should be glad there’s nobody else hurt,” she said with an attempt at a smile. “Do you want to go home? There really isn’t anything to do, and Bessie’ll be in later, if anything should happen.”

Margaret grimaced. “And trail around behind Mama, calling on nice ladies who look at me with kindly despair and wonder why I haven’t accepted a reasonable offer of marriage?” she said wryly. “Then they’ll assume that there is something terribly wrong with me… too indiscreet to mention, and they will think I have lost my virtue!” She gave a little grunt of frustration. “Why is it that young women are presumed to have only two possible virtues-chastity and obedience?” she demanded with sudden fierceness. “What about courage, or honesty of opinion, not just a matter of not taking what does not belong to you?”

“Because they make people uncomfortable,” Hester replied without hesitation, but giving Margaret a crooked, sympathetic smile.

“Can you imagine anything lonelier than being married to someone who always says what he thinks you want to hear, regardless of whatever it is that he thinks?” Margaret asked, her brows puckered in a frown. “It would be like living in a room full of mirrors, where every other face you saw was simply a reflection of your own.”

“I think it would be a very particular kind of hell,” Hester answered with a rush of wonder and pity that anyone could imagine they desired such a thing, and yet she knew many who thought they did. “You have a gift to put it into such vivid words,” she added with admiration. “Perhaps you should try to convey it visually sometime?”

“That would be something really worth drawing,” Margaret responded. “I am so bored with doing the predictable, just reproducing what I see in front of me, with no greater meaning.”

“I can barely draw a straight line,” Hester admitted.

Margaret flashed her a sudden smile. “There are no straight lines in art-except perhaps the horizons at sea. Would you like me to go out and see if I can find us some hot pies for luncheon? There is a good peddler on the corner of Mount Pleasant and Warner Street.”

“What an excellent idea,” Hester said enthusiastically. “One with flaky pastry-and lots of onions… please?”

In the late afternoon Bessie came in carrying a basket with herbs, tea, a bottle of brandy, and a loaf of bread. She set it down on the table and looked around the room before taking off her hat and cape.

“Nobody!” she said with disgust, hanging the cape and bonnet on the hooks near the door. “ ’Ardly a bleedin’ soul out in the streets neither, ’ceptin’ damn bluebottles! An’ bin like that all night too, they say.” She looked at Hester reproachfully, as if somehow she had failed to do anything about it.

“I know!” Hester replied tartly. “The pressure is still on them to find whoever killed Nolan Baltimore.”

“Some pimp ’e crossed up!” Bessie retorted. “What else? Der they think as someone’s goin’ ter tell ’em that if they asks often enough? Don’t s’pose nob’dy knows, ’ceptin’’im wot done it. An’ ’e in’t gonna tell. ’E’d be dancin’ at the end of a rope ’fore ’e can say ’knife.’ “ She walked over to the cupboard and started to rearrange the things inside it so she could put the new groceries away. “Funny, innit? Some bleedin’ usurer can beat a girl ’alf ter death, an’ nob’dy gives a toss! But kill some toff wot’s refused ter pay ’is debts an’ ’alf the rozzers in Lunnon’s out in the streets wastin’ their time askin’ questions they know nob’dy’s gonna answer. Sometimes I think they’re sittin’ on their brains an’ thinkin’ wi’ their backsides!” She glared at the basket. “Couldn’t get no butter. Yer’ll ’ave ter do wi’ bread an’ jam.”

Margaret stopped riddling the stove and moved the kettle over onto the hob.

“Nob’dy’s workin’!” Bessie went on relentlessly. “Them as brings the money in are frit o’ bein’ done by the rozzers… all this ’keep the streets decent’ thing. An’ them as if livin’ ’ere in’t got no trade ’cos no one’s got no money! It’s wicked-that’s wot it is.”

There was no answer to make. There was not even any purpose in either Hester’s or Margaret’s remaining for the rest of the afternoon. Hester said as much, and Bessie agreed with her.

“Yer get orff.” She nodded. “There’s nothin’ much gonna ’appen ’ere. If that fat slug Jessop comes ’round lookin’ fer yer, I’ll give’im a nice ’ot cup o’ tea!” She grinned demonically.

“Bessie!” Hester warned.

“Wot?” She opened her eyes wide. “If it don’t agree wif’im, I know ’ow ter give summink ter make’im sick it up! I won’ let the bastard die, I gi’ me word.” She spat and made an elaborate gesture of crossing her heart.

Hester glanced at Margaret, and they both half hid smiles.

But all the way home and for the rest of the evening until Monk returned late and tired, Hester thought about the women, the police around the Farringdon Road and the Coldbath area. It was no moral answer to the evil to get the police presence removed, but it was a practical answer to the lack of trade which was crippling everyone and turning tempers so ugly.

She had tried to avoid coming to the conclusion, but it was inevitable: the only thing that would make them leave would be to solve the murder of Nolan Baltimore. If the police were going to succeed, they would almost certainly have done so by now. The community had closed against them, which was to be expected. No one would tell them anything of meaning in case it would implicate himself, in prostitution if nothing else. And most of the inhabitants of the Leather Lane area were involved, at least peripherally, in fencing stolen goods, a little forgery, of documents if not of money, in pickpocketing, burglary, cardsharping and a dozen other illegal pursuits.

She could ask Monk, at least for advice, if not practical help. He knew and understood murder and its investigation. And perhaps it was in the interest of his own case to learn everything he could of the man who, until a week or two ago, had been the head of Baltimore and Sons. If there had been fraud, he might have known of it; he might even have been the man who perpetrated it. Surely it was reasonable to suppose his death was connected?

In fact, the jarringly ugly thought was irrefutable that Michael Dalgarno could have followed him to Leather Lane and killed him, precisely because he knew of the fraud and would have exposed it.

Why had Monk not thought of that?

Because he was so caught up in investigating the exact nature of the fraud, and whether it could provoke a disaster, that he had ignored Nolan Baltimore’s murder.

She waited for him, barely thinking of what else she was doing. She found herself listening for the sound of horses in the street from six o’clock onwards, for the opening and closing of the door and his footsteps. When they finally came at nearly quarter to eight she was caught by surprise, and almost ran into the hall.

He saw her face, the expectation in it, and gave her a quick smile and then looked away. The weariness and anxiety in him were so easy to read she hesitated for a moment, uncertain whether to say anything more than a few words of welcome. Should she ask him if he were hungry or had eaten, or make some enquiry after his success that could be answered on the surface-or honestly, as he chose? She could not let it slide by. If he were not going to break the barrier, then she must.

“Did you find anything more about the fraud?” she asked, not casually, but as if she were waiting for and required an answer.

“Nothing helpful,” he replied, taking his jacket off and hanging it up on the hook. “There’s dubious profit in land sales, but nothing more than I imagine most companies make. There are some losses as well.”

She felt as if he had closed a door. There seemed little more that she could ask, but she refused to let go. She watched him, but he moved around the room restlessly, without looking directly at her, touching things, straightening, putting away. Was she mithering him just at the time when he needed the silent understanding of a friend? Was she being selfish, expecting him to give her his attention, listen to her, think of her problems when he was exhausted?

Or was she breaking a barrier while it was still thin enough to be penetrated easily, before it became habit?

“We need to find out who killed Nolan Baltimore,” she said very clearly.

“Do we?” There was doubt in his voice. He was standing near the mantelshelf staring down at the embers of the fire. It was a sharp evening, and she had lit the fire for company as well as warmth. “I don’t see that his personal weaknesses have anything to do with railway fraud, if there is any.”

“If he defrauded somebody of money, then Leather Lane seems an excellent place to kill him,” she retorted, wishing he would look at her. “A perfect situation to blame someone else, and exact a rather painful revenge on his reputation as well.”

This time he did look up and smile, but it was without pleasure. There was an openness that flickered for an instant in his eyes, as if there had been no shadow, then it was gone again. The anxiety was back, and with it the distance between them.

“Actually, when I said ’we,’ “ she corrected herself, “I meant Margaret Ballinger and me. Or perhaps I meant everybody in Coldbath. More women are getting beaten because they can’t pay their debts. The police are all over the place so nobody’s doing any trade.”